


Tripartite Negotiations

by DachOsmin



Category: The Goblin Emperor - Katherine Addison
Genre: Blow Jobs, Cunnilingus, F/M, M/M, Misunderstandings, Multi, Pining, Polyamory Negotiations, Power Dynamics, Threesome - F/M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-04-21
Updated: 2017-04-21
Packaged: 2018-10-21 23:53:21
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,530
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10685481
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/DachOsmin/pseuds/DachOsmin
Summary: The empress waits until Csevet has drunk deep from his cup before speaking.“We have seen the way you look at our husband.”





	Tripartite Negotiations

**Author's Note:**

  * For [farevenasdecidedtouse](https://archiveofourown.org/users/farevenasdecidedtouse/gifts).



Csevet receives the note on a lazy summer afternoon three months after the imperial wedding. It’s written on thick cream parchment, it’s stamped with the zhasan’s seal, and it is utterly unexpected.

It is not that Csevet has no business meeting with the empress. To the contrary: her business and Edrehasivar’s have become hopelessly intertwined in the time since the wedding; Csevet has spent countless hours in her study, poring over schedules and arguing fiercely with her and her secretary, a half goblin woman with perfect nails and an iron spine.

But the empress wishes to meet him for tea in her private parlor. Alone. Were she any other woman, it would be an assignation, plain as day. But she is wholly herself and such a thing would be completely out of character, not least because she has eyes only for her husband. Not that Csevet can fault her for that. He is many things, but never a hypocrite.

He goes anyway because one does not ignore an imperial note, no matter how opaque it is. A maid shows him into the parlor, one he has never seen before. But there is no time to examine the room further for the empress is sweeping in: back ramrod straight, face an unreadable mask of powder and kohl. Her mouth has the grim cast of a warrior on the cusp of battle. Csevet’s palms begin to sweat beneath the lace of his cuffs.

“Mer Aisava.” She gestures him towards a settee in the center of the room, the red lacquer on her nails catching the light of the braziers. “Please, sit.”

He perches himself hesitantly on the edge of the sofa; she seats herself in the chair opposite with a sweep of her skirts.

A silent maid approaches with a tea service; the empress pours two cups and places one before him the way she might for one of her ladies in waiting. As if to soothe him, to put him at ease.

He does not feel at ease. The room is too warm; his collar is sticky against the back of his neck. He finds he has no idea what to say, much less how to discern what she wants from him.

“Please, Mer Aisava. Drink.”

She watches him with a pensive gaze, silent as he raises the brim of the cup to his lips. He can tell by the scent that it’s white dragon-pearl, picked in the hills of Nelozho. One cup is worth more than he earns in a year. Such are the benefits of imperial attention. But what are the costs?

The empress waits until he has drunk deep from his cup before speaking.

“We have seen the way you look at our husband.”

It’s only the iron of his nerves, honed over years in the fleet, that prevents him from spitting the tea in her face. He swallows instead; the tea scalds at the insides of his throat on the way down. “Zhasan-“

She raises an eyebrow. “And the way he looks at you.”

Gods and goddesses both. “Zhasan, we are sure we do not-“

“You are not attracted to him, then? We understand this is very forward, but we wish for precision in this, of all things.”

Csevet stares down at the shifting liquid of the tea, wishing he could sink into it and disappear. “Your meaning is crystal clear,” he murmurs.

“And your response?” she asks, relentless.

He thinks of Maia, with his silvered eyes and joyful smile. Thinks of how his ears twitch when he’s amused, of how he bites his lip when lost in thought. He thinks of all the times he’s thought of how those lips would taste against his own. And he sees these thoughts in the empress’s eyes, and knows there’s nothing he can say.

He tries anyway. “We have the greatest respect for your imperial person, and that of your husband, and the bonds of marriage between you. We would not- we would not see it sullied, not by our hand.” The words feel sticky and awkward in his mouth. They feel like defeat as he speaks them. “Whatever base thoughts our heart has held against us… we lament them.”

“We see.” She leans back and sighs deeply, tapping a finger against the wing of her chair as if lost in thought. “We suppose you are poised to become our opposite number, then.”

“We- we have not-“

She cuts him off with a wave of her hand. “Have you heard of Dach’Osmerrem Csateran Medicharan? She wrote often on this subject. Most famously: never has a woman who loves her husband-“

“-liked his whore.” The words are dull on his tongue. It is not done to interrupt an empress but by Salezheio, he cannot bear to hear that word. Not from her.

She has the grace to wince, at least. “We were going to say lover.”

He takes a sip of tea to steady himself. It tastes like ash in his mouth. “With all due respect, that was not the word Dach’Osmerrem Medicharan used.” He should know; he’s had it thrown in his face often enough. He tries to remember what he knows of the lady in question- the wife of some lordling in Thu-Amar that had entertained a veritable harem of mistresses and eventually died of-

He sets the teacup down on the table with shaking fingers; the edge clatters against the saucer like a warning. He swallows, breathes in a shuddered breath. “Dach’Osmerrem Medicharan was also called Death’s Mistress, was she not?”

Brow wrinkled, the empress looks from his face to the cup before her eyes widen in understanding, and- perhaps a touch of hurt? “Poison is a coward’s weapon. Make no mistake, if we thought you a threat to our husband or the crown, we would run you through where we stood. But we deem you to be no such threat.” She sighs. “And if desiring Maia were a crime, well, we would surely be just as guilty.”

The image comes unbidden: emperor and empress entwined in an ardent embrace. It is not in the least bit helpful. “We assure you, we have not asked-“

She waves him off. “Of course you have not. You are far too loyal to ask, and he is far too noble to accept. And were it any other way we might indeed feel ill served.”

“Zhasan?” he asks blankly.

She favors him with a wry smile. “We aren’t angry at you, Mer Aisava. Quite the opposite. We did not bring you here to warn you away, or indeed to chastise you at all.”

He cannot help but raise an eyebrow at that. “This is not a warning?”

“Not at all. It’s an invitation.”

Well. That is… not at all what he expected. “An invitation.”

“You must understand,” she says. “We have never expected exclusivity, or indeed valued it: we already share our husband with every elf in the Ethuveraz, dachen and michen both. What’s one more? But trust- trust is precious to us.” Her eyes flash at this, bright as the sweep of a sword. “A dalliance is acceptable. But I will not be shamed in my own court by an affair kept secret, conducted ‘neath my very nose.”

“What do you wish from us, zhasan?” he asks helplessly.

“What do we wish?” She sighs. “We wish for our husband to be happy, above all else. And so we say to you this: we will speak to him of your desires, and favorably so. And if you are amenable, we shall summon you to attend on the two of us together. To be there on the first night is all I ask. And after that…” she shrugs, “after that it is up to the two of you to decide.”

It is the worst sort of pain, to know that his happiness is being bought at the expense of another. But he cannot quell the spark of joy he feels at her words, and he hates himself for it.

~*~

The scheduled night finds him standing before his closet like a youth at his first Winternight ball, rifling through his clothes and biting at his nails. What to wear, what to wear? He is tempted by the purple doublet edged in Avaleise lace- it had always been popular in the bars and dance halls of Cetho, back when he had times for such things. But the color and cut are inappropriate for court, and the last thing he wants is whispers in the Emperor’s wake of a secretary entering private chambers dressed like a painted whore.

He settles on a doublet of pale watered silk that he has been told accentuates his eyes. Not that it matters much. The imperial couple will not desire for him to remain clothed for long.

He puts it on anyway, fastens the buckles, and smooths the fabric over his thighs. And then there is nothing left to distract him, and he has naught to do but wait.

Mercifully the summons comes soon after, carried by a tired-eyed messenger boy. He yawns and fidgets as Csevet takes the letter in hand; doubtless he does not understand the implications of a sealed missive sent from the Emperor’s own hand late at night. Csevet waves the boy away as he slices his nail through the seal, heart beating in his chest. He has caught himself wondering, over the past week, if his conversation with the empress was some waking dream. Words may be misconstrued, memories may be twisted, after all. But as he scans the short note, all such thoughts are put to rest.

Allusions and suggestions are made into plain text: the desires of the imperial couple laid bare. Upon receipt of the letter, he is to come to the imperial bedchamber, where the emperor and his wife will receive him. There is no room for mistaking their meaning.

The letter is signed by both of them, Maia in his large looped scrawl and Csethiro in the tight angles of the barzhad.

Csevet is abruptly and fiercely angry. He throws the letter onto his desk and fetches the nearest candle, feeding the paper into the flame with shaking fingers. Have they no sense? A letter from Maia alone might cause knowing smiles, but one from Csethiro as well? They should not, cannot risk the legitimacy of their future children by implicating her with a male lover. By the gods, they should have known better.

The anger leaves him as sudden as it came. But how could they have known better? Unless he is wildly off the mark, they have never done this before, neither one.

They are not like him. He has done this so many times. Been made to do it. Or been asked, at any rate, but a soft-lipped request from a marquis or duke is no request at all, and both parties know it.

Rarely do the trysts end happily. His patrons have a fantasy in mind- the courier lover of blue-backed novels and bawdy tavern songs. He is to be lustful but not greedy, innocent but not chaste, attractive but not prideful. The roles he must play and the masks he must wear put a dachen-opera to shame.

And even if he were to stay within the strict confines of the parts prescribed to him, there is so much that can go wrong. More often than not he becomes the catalyst that betrays the cracks in the couple’s marriage. The wife will use his obeisance to make her husband jealous. Or the husband will use Csevet’s skills to mock his wife’s shortcomings. Either way, the keyword is “use,” and thus while he may play parts as diverse as a sex toy, a mirror, or a shoulder for crying, he is never himself.

When he thinks of being used so by the imperial couple, being reduced so…

He could refuse the summons. He has never refused before. He has never been in a position to refuse, before. He would barely be able to manage it now. He would have to resign, of course, and no noble in Cetho with any sense of politics would deign to hire him- but there are other cities, other ways to make a life, ones where he would not have to surrender his body for another’s whims.

And so he could manage it, and indeed, a part of him is tempted. But a larger part of him wishes to stay. And not simply because this is a better life than he ever could have imagined for himself. Not simply because he would spend the rest of his days hanging on news from Cetho if he left, living some half-life of regret on the edge of the empire. Away from Edrehasivar. From Maia.

For that is the crux of the matter. Csethiro had not been wrong about him. About Maia. And if these are the only crumbs he is ever offered- a temporary place in his emperor’s bed, playing second fiddle to the woman Maia loves- then by Salezheio, he will take them as long as they are offered, eat them up like a starving man, and beg for more.

Night falls. He leaves his apartment with his eyes open, and resolves to keep them so. He will be remembering this night every night for the rest of his life. He tells himself it will be enough. But as he walks the long halls of the palace, ribbons in his hair and his heart a leaden weight in his chest, he knows in the marrow of his bones that it’s a lie.

~*~

He makes the trek from his quarters to the Alcethmeret in almost complete silence. It is late, and most respectable courtiers have cleared the halls. The few out pay him no mind; he has cultivated the reputation of a man married to his desk, even at odd hours.

Things become more fraught once he enters the shadowed corridors of the Emperor’s personal residence. A maid in the drawing room startles as he walks by, staring at him with wide eyes as he heads towards the bedchamber. He nods at her and she blushes, hurrying away into the next room. There will be rumors in the kitchens and sculleries come morning. He thinks the servants will be circumspect in this case. He was one of them once; that counts for something.

And then he is approaching the double doors of the imperial bedchamber, the first nohecharei silent sentinels to the right and left. The doors are closed, but he can see a sliver of golden light underneath them, brightening the shadowed hallway.

He very carefully does not look at the nohecharei as he raps on the door; though he imagines he can feel Lieutenant Beshelar’s eyes burning a brand into the back of his neck. They do not address him: they are too proper for that; it is not their place to question the will of the emperor. But their silence tastes like censure all the same. They are human, despite the constricts of their office. And if the Emperor is above judgement, well, Csevet will bear their disapproval in full.

“Come in.”

For all the butterflies in his stomach, he feels nothing but relief in that moment as he pushes the door open and makes his escape from the stifling stricture of the hallway.

He blinks as he walks inside. The candelabras have all been lit; the light glitters golden over the tiles of the floor and the gilded carvings on the walls. He feels like he’s in a fairy story: the simple farm boy transported into some otherworldly palace.

“We are happy you chose to come.”

He turns to see Maia and Csethiro sitting side by side in the midst of their behemoth of a bed. They’re both wearing dressing robes of white silk; they look like matching dolls: one dark, one light.

It hits him then, how young they both are. Maia’s hands are clasping and unclasping the silk of the coverlet; Csethiro’s expression would be more suited to the battlefield than the bedroom.

Gods and goddesses, but they’re more nervous than he is. He swallows down a laugh. “We are ever at your disposal, Serenity.”

Maia blanches, glancing helplessly at his wife. “We- I have not asked you here as your liege, Csevet.” He stammers on around the point with decreasing coherency, and Csevet is blindsided by the rush of affection he feels in response. He has shared the beds of all manner of couples, yes, but this is different. Maia is no lordling born to power that wishes for a pretty toy to fuck. Maia asked him here by his own name- and that makes all the difference.

“-and in conclusion if you came believing you had no choice, we beg you to tell us, that we may offer our utmost apology and allow you to-“

Csevet cannot hold back any longer: he strides to the bed and captures Maia’s mouth in a chaste kiss.

He feels Maia stiffen against him for a moment, then relax against him. Maia’s lips are soft beneath his; he can taste the faintest trace of honeysuckle balm. Gods, but he wants to kiss him more, kiss him deeper. He wants Maia breathless in his arms.

He swallows and pulls back instead, staring fixedly at the floor. This feels like some waking dream; nothing this good can happen without a catch. He has to be sure. “Are you still certain you want this?”

When he dares to look up, Maia’s eyes are wide as saucers. He’s staring at Csevet like he’s something precious, some treasure from a fairy story. “Yes. Csevet, I- yes.”

Next to him, Csethiro appears to be similarly affected. “Oh yes,” she breathes, “Yes, kiss him again.”

He does, and gladly so.

Maia leans into the kiss; as his lips part Csevet seizes his chance, licking into his mouth, scraping his teeth over Maia’s lower lip. He swallows Maia’s soft gasps; he thinks he could grow drunk on them.

Maia raises his hands in the air as if he has no idea what he is allowed to do with them and then ever so hesitantly rests a hand in Csevet’s hair, as if he fears Csevet might break beneath him.

It is a notion Csevet is eager to disabuse him of. He wants Maia to touch him, to take and give pleasure without fearing what Csevet will think. Be the change one wishes to see, he thinks giddily, and crawls into Maia’s lap. He lets his kisses turn into filthy, open mouthed things, abandons Maia’s mouth for the line of his jaw and the soft skin of his neck.

He judges by Maia’s surprised moan that he likes it, he likes it very much. Maia’s hips begin to stutter up against Csevet’s ass; he can feel Maia’s cock begin to swell with interest against the inside of his thigh. His own cock twitches at the thought: Maia is lusting after him. Maia wants him.

Oh, but he could come from that knowledge alone. He suddenly wants more than kisses. He smiles at Maia’s sigh he pulls away, smiles wider when Maia gasps as he sinks to his knees by the side of the bed. He hooks his hands under Maia’s knees and pulls them forward so that Maia is positioned at the edge of the bed, bulge in his breeches right at eye level. He cannot help himself; he leans in to nose at Maia’s cock, inhaling the scent of lust through the silk. He lets himself look up through the veil of his eyelashes at Maia as he drags the flat of his tongue over the fabric.

“Csevet, gods, please-“ Maia says. 

Csevet can't wait any longer; he pulls Maia's robes open. He lets his tongue dart out in the lightest of touches, enjoying Maia’s wide eyes on him. Next to him, Csethiro is watching raptly.

He gets an idea. A wonderful, devilish idea. He pulls away from Maia’s cock, biting back a grin at Maia’s whimper of disappointment. He turns to face Csethiro instead, who is perched on the edge of the bed watching the proceedings with wide eyes and parted lips. Winking, he extends his hand in invitation. “Would the zhasan join us?”

She looks shocked at the suggestion, and Csevet can’t help but feel puzzled for a moment. Did she assume she would have no part in this? Had she really thought that Maia and Csevet would be so overwhelmed with lust for each other that they would pay her no mind? Had she planned to simply fade into the background? She had, he realized with a sinking feeling. That is exactly what she had thought would happen.

“Come,” he says, “and show us how your husband likes to be touched.”

He half expects her to blush and recuse herself. But she is a woman delighted by a challenge, if nothing else. She leans in to give Maia a quick peck on the cheek, and then she’s sliding off the bed and kneeling gracefully at his side between Maia’s spread legs.

Csevet watches, entranced, as she leans in to lick a long stripe up the side of Maia’s cock. She is a delightful tease, all prim kisses and delicate swipes of her tongue. He could watch her for hours; it’s only Maia’s whimpers that remind him he can join in. He sets to work on the base of Maia’s cock, planting open mouthed kiss after kiss, sloppy and wet against the shaft as Csethiro works the other side.

They happen to cross paths a moment later; their noses bump as they work their way along opposite sides of his shaft. He blinks at her, and gets a lovely idea in his head. With a wink, he stretches his lips around the girth of Maia’s cock to kiss her. Her eyes widen, and then take on a filthy gleam of their own. She flicks her tongue along the underside of Maia’s cock to lick at Csevet’s lips and oh, this is perfect.

They begin to kiss in earnest. Their tongues are sloppy as they mouth at each other, Maia’s cock a helpless prisoner between them. The noises alone are obscene; Csevet can only imagine how they look together: a matched set on their knees, mouths filled with cock and each other’s tongues, utterly engrossed by the task at hand. He steals a glance up at Maia and gods and goddesses-

Maia’s already a wreck. He’s watching them helplessly, eyes darting from Csevet to Csethiro to the join of their lips like he has no idea where to focus his attentions. His hands are curled in the bed sheets, white knuckled and trembling. His breath a mess of stuttered moans; his hips begin to twitch like a bit of broken clockwork, and he begins to make tiny, abortive thrusts into the heat of their mouths. He looks utterly drunk on pleasure, and Csevet’s own cock is twitching in his breeches at the sight.

Just when Csevet begins to taste the salty tang of precum on his tongue, Csethiro pulls away. “’Twould be a shame to waste his spend in our mouths,” she says matter-of-factly. “Would you have him fuck you?”

Csevet, having somehow missed that the empress has the mouth of a sailor, can only blink at her.

She mistakes his surprise for reticence. “We may lack experience,” she says with a hint of defensiveness, “but we believe he is quite good, and think you would enjoy it-“

Csevet can’t imagine not enjoying it: the thought of Maia buried deep in him, thrusting with slow snaps of his hips, oh- “We are sure we would, zhasan, but we would not deprive you-“

But Csethiro is shaking her head. “We have had him inside us so many nights; it is only fair to share.” She tilts her head in thought. “Besides, we think we would like to watch, and to give the view our full attention. We wish to see how his face clenches as he breaches you for the first time. How his mouth falls open as pleasure takes him and he loses the rhythm of his thrusts. We wish to hear the noise he makes as he spills his seed inside of you.”

Csevet is distantly aware that his mouth has fallen open. His cock is painfully hard against his breeches; he needs to get it out, he needs Maia to fuck him right now-

“But what of your pleasure, love?” Maia cuts in, frowning. “We would not have you neglected; we could use our mouth on you perhaps, or-”

She waves him off. “Tonight is not for our pleasure.”

Even blinded by lust, Csevet can’t help but frown. She had seemed so pleased to participate earlier; wherefore this new reticence? She’s already letting Csevet take her husband’s cock; she deserves some pleasure of her own in kind at the very least. He clears his throat. “With all due respect, zhasan, the invitation was signed by the both of you. And giving pleasure is a pleasure all its own.” He raises an eyebrow. “Unless you do not wish for us to touch you?”

“It-it is not that,” she says, blushing.

“Then we shall proceed.” He takes her chin in his hand and pulls their mouths together. It is a sweet kiss: chaste, for all their lips are slick with spit and precum. She lets herself lean into him for a moment, dares to swipe the tip of her tongue over his lips, before pulling away. “You do not have to,” she murmurs against his ear, too soft for Maia to hear. “We know you are not here for us.”

He is abruptly angry, though not at her. How many times has she been told not to expect or insist on her husband’s love? How many times has she been told that she can never hope for more than whatever spare coupling he demanded?

“Zhasan,” he says, “it is not a matter of having to.”

And with that he sweeps her up in his arms and lifts her to the bed.

Her skin is hot against his; he can feel the sparrow-flutter of her pulse where she touches him. He sits her on the edge of the bed beside Maia, and then presses her down, ever so gently, onto the coverlet.

He is helpless before her loveliness in this moment; he can do nothing but stand and stare. She is beautiful laid out before him: cheeks flushed rosy, hands flung artfully above her head, hair spread out like snow across the bedspread. But most of all he is struck by the vulnerable strength in her blue, blue eyes.

He sees now, why Maia looks at her so.

She clears her throat. “Well? Will you stand there the whole night through?”

Csevet cannot help but laugh as he leans in to untie the knots of her robe. “We are at the zhasan’s command,” he murmurs as he gently pulls the slack out of the laces. The silk parts with a whisper beneath his fingers, and the robe falls to either side of her like a discarded chrysalis.

It’s hard to decide where to touch first: her breasts beckon, small and crowned with pert pink nipples. Then there are her hips, ample and smooth, and between them a shock of silver curls.

But his choice is made up for him: this is not about his pleasure but hers, and so help him, he will do everything to make this as good as he can for her. He leans forward, taking one of her ankles in hand and slipping his hand up her calf and thigh. He pulls her legs apart and kneels between them, tastes the scent of her arousal in the air. Out of the corner of his eye he can see her twining her fingers in her husband’s hands. Maia is watching with rapt attention, cock hard and leaking against the silk of his robe. He looks for all the world as if he cannot decide whether to lose himself in watching, or take notes. What a lovely husband he’s turned out to be.

Csevet turns back to the task at hand. He begins by pressing close-mouthed kisses against the white skin of Csethiro’s thighs in a parody of chasteness. He does this over and over, until she is rocking her hips up into the open air in desperate search of more. “Csevet,” she gasps, “we will be most wroth at you if you do not-“

Her words are cut off with a cry as Csevet opens his mouth and presses the flat of his tongue against her cunt. He laves it back and forth, darting forward to ply into her, then suckling at her until she is crying out and keening as she presses herself against him.

He allows himself to be rougher, then; he lashes his tongue against her as she rides his mouth hard, too far gone to worry about anything but taking her pleasure from him. Her breathing becomes ragged and quick. Her thighs shudder on either side of his head. She comes apart not a moment later: feet stabbing at the bed and head thrown backwards as she screams out her climax. He is sure the nohecharei can hear every bit of it in the hall, and he does not care in the slightest.

Her cries subside, and Csevet finally allows himself to lean back and catch his breath.

He notes with a start that Csethiro and Maia are both staring at him like he hung the moon. The empress has the dazed look of a woman drunk on pleasure. And Maia- gods, Maia.

He looks utterly wrecked. His robe is hanging open, and there’s seed dripping across the planes of his stomach.

He’d come like that, Csevet realizes. Just from watching Csevet and Csethiro together. Gods and Goddesses both.

“Well,” Csevet says, resisting the urge to pin him to the bed with kisses then and there. “What shall we do next?”

Maia makes a helpless sound, as if speech is well beyond him.

Csethiro offers him a languid smile. “I would take that to mean he defers to your excellent judgement.”

He thinks of how he would like to take Maia’s cock, perhaps on all fours, perhaps on his back. He thinks of the noises he could wring from Csethiro with both his and Maia’s tongues working her in tandem. He thinks about how Maia’s face would look as he is fucked into for the first time.

Maia’s cock twitches. Csethiro raises an eyebrow.

“If it matters,” he says at last, “We made sure to clear your schedules tomorrow until well into the afternoon.”

~*~

Moon-rise finds the three of them curled up in the center of the bed. Maia is fast asleep; he’s been dead to the world since approximately five seconds after his third orgasm, and shows no signs of stirring any time soon. Csethiro and Csevet are curled around him on either side like bookends.

Unlike Maia, Csevet is very much awake. He is running through the evening in his head, committing every gasp, every arched back and hoarse cry to memory. He wants this night to be burned into the backs of his eyelids like an afterimage of the sun.

“Csevet.”

He looks up to see Csethiro leaning her head on Maia’s shoulder and watching him with a thoughtful expression.

He hesitates a moment. “Zhasan?”

“We were thinking-“ she pauses, makes a face. “I was thinking, that is. That Dach’Osmerrem Medicharan was wrong.”

“In what way?” he says cautiously.

“You make our husband very happy. And that makes me happy.”

“You know,” he murmurs, “that he loves you very much."

She nods in that self-assured way of hers, and his heart warms at the thought that she truly does believe it now. “Of course he does. And you as well.”

He looks down. “We have never sought to replace you.”

She lets out a most unladylike snort at that. “I think this past evening has dispelled me of that fear. If there is anyone who has enough love in his heart for two, it is our husband.” She smiles. “And surely the bed is big enough, if that is what concerns thee.”

He does not know what to say past the lump in his throat; for all it is true, the enormity of what he is being offered-

She puts a hand on his shoulder, gently pushes him down against Maia’s chest. “Thinkest too much. Sleep.”

In all the times he has done this, he has never been asked to stay the night. And there are a million reasons why he shouldn’t- the sun will rise and the edocharei will talk and the nohecharei will disapprove- but all he can seem to focus on is the warmth in his empress’s eyes.

“As the zhasan commands,” he says, and lets himself relax into Maia’s cradled embrace.

She follows suit, offering him a crooked smile as he closes his eyes. “Please. Call me Csethiro.”

And Csevet dares to hope.

**Author's Note:**

> Dear recip, I hope you enjoy this! I have been told you're quite partial to Maia/Csevet/Csethiro. It's an intriguing pairing, and I found myself wondering about the Csethiro/Csevet side of things.
> 
> Dach’Osmerrem Csateran Medicharan, quote and sinister reputation both, are borrowed from the historical Catherine de’Medici.
> 
> The tea meeting gets brought up quite a while later, after they’ve all settled into a happy poly triad. To whit: “Gods, Csevet, I thought thou hated me!” “Hated you? Csethiro I thought thou wert THREATENING TO POISON ME.” And it’s all very funny in retrospect.
> 
> And thank you, Ten, for the very helpful beta.


End file.
